Osun; metaphor for unpaid salaries

About two months ago, a female retiree of the Osun State public service called to complain about unpaid workers’ salaries, and wanted this writer to wade in, as an advocate of the masses. After another caller came up with the same issue, it became imperative to find out what was going on in Osun State. Osun State truly owes about six months’ salary backlog, and the workers have become restive as a result.

Osun State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, attributes the unpaid salaries to Osun State’s dwindling revenue. For instance, he revealed, revenue from all sources in 2012, including the Federation Account; internally generated revenue; and other accruals, like Value Added Tax from the Federal Government, yielded N28.4 billion, whereas total wage bill only was N31.6 billion, leaving a deficit of N3.2 billion. The same scenario was repeated in 2013, with a deficit of N10.4 billion.

It turned out also that dwindling oil revenue has made it difficult for the Federal Government, and 24 (some say 28)of Nigeria’s 36 states, to pay staff salaries. The initial cause of the palaver was the increase of minimum wage to N18,000, unilaterally entered into by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration with the labour unions. It became a kerfuffle when the price of crude oil plummeted, and reduced the revenue that accrued to the nation.

The Nigerian Governors’ Forum, led by former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, alleged that another cause of the problem was the Federal Government’s squandering of funds due to the states from the Excess Crude Account. But former Minister of Finance, and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, countered that the money was actually paid to states. She asked governors who are in doubt to ask their commissioners for finance for the whereabouts of their allocation.

Things have gotten so bad, as the traditional source of money got compromised, that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation is unable to meet $2 billion cash call obligations to its joint-venture international oil corporations partners. Indeed an IOC source alleges that the Federal Government totally mismanaged available crude oil revenue, and misappropriated money meant to execute projects and activities that were not included in budgets approved by the National Assembly.

The All Progressives Congress Progressive Governors’ Forum, led by Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, recently called on President Muhammadu Buhari to say that, “As it stands today, most states of the federation have not been able to pay (outstanding) salaries,” and expected that Buhari “will do everything humanly possible to bring about a bailout.”

Some argue that some Nigerian governments embarked on ambitious projects. The governments, they argued, had thought that the higher revenue that accompanied increased demand for crude oil by China and other countries would continue forever. Most states, they added, became complacent, and failed to explore alternative sources for revenue.

But you see, government is about providing services to the people—and paying some cadres of the citizenry to perform it. And there are some services that the people didn’t ask for, but must be provided nonetheless: You don’t ask for the military or police forces to protect you, before government provides them anyway.

The same goes for social services, like hospitals, schools, and traffic control that will have adverse effect on society if not discharged. You will have a hard time faulting an Osun State Government that fulfills its electoral promisesby feeding about 254,000 pupils daily, and providing jobs for about 3,000 cooks, and giving farming and agribusiness a shot in the arm, through the ‘O’ MEALS Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme. Neither can you really fight a plan to refurbish the old Osogbo Aerodrome, to provide a hub to freight agricultural cargo from Osun and adjoining states. The airport comes with a repairs hanger where military, private operators and commercial airlines can repair their aircrafts. The network of roads around the airport also makes for easy fight connections for passengers and farming cargoes.

But the sudden drop of oil revenue scuppered the whole thing, bringing unpaid wages in its wake. Because the problem of unpaid wages of government workers is a universal phenomenon in Nigeria, many suggest down-sizing of staff. That fails to recognize that employment of workers is also a legitimate social service expected of every government.

That explains why the salaries of civil servants are usually lower than those of private sector employees; and that the guarantee of tenure, gratuity and pension, are their compensations for accepting lower wages. It’s the same reason that it takes a longer time and more rigorous procedure to fire civil servants.

This then brings up the argument that is making the rounds; namely, that states governments must be allowed to independently negotiate minimum wages with the labour unions. If the Federal Government will not pay the salary bills of states, it should not negotiate wages on their behalf. Allowing each state the autonomy to negotiate its minimum wage with labour goes by the name, ‘fiscal federalism.’

But really the Federal Government is too big, to the detriment of states and (especially) local governments. The real interface between the state and the citizens is more at the local government level. Shouldn’t the revenue allocation formula be restructured to the advantage of local government councils?

Indeed, the day for the argument for fiscal federalism is here. It is imperative for the Nigerian state to recognize that those who provide the resources must be first partakers in its yield. That must explain why the NigerDelta, whose soil provides the oil and gas that has provided the major source of revenue for the country, complainabout being schemed out of the returns from the petroleum resources.

“Conscious of the fact that (the Niger Delta region) remains the most valuable physical resource for (national) development,” a recent summit of the Ijaw nation notes that “Ijaw… communities suffer the deleterious effects of oil and gas exploration and exploitation,” and regrets that the Nigerian state is unable “to address the concomitant negative impacts on the health, economy, culture, and environment of the Ijaw people.”

The Ijaw have therefore expressed a desire for self-determination, having noted that the treaty of 1914, between the Ijaw and the British colonial powers, lapsed in 2014. They consequently empowered the summit ‘to initiate the process of renegotiating the basis of (Ijaw) coexistence with other ethnic nationalities (in Nigeria).”

Fair-minded Nigerian patriots must not ignore this heart cry of the Ijaw—or other nationalities for that matter. All people of goodwill must strive to achieve a more honest interpretation, and implementation, of the protocols of democratic and federal governance in Nigeria.

But more to the point: State governments that owe salaries must certainly demonstrate the will to pay. They could restructure payment schedules (the way bankers do), and then seek to re-negotiate more realistic minimum wage regime with labour. This way, accrued wage bills are settled, and a future without financial booby-traps charted.

And yes, it is not enough to simply blame the governments for unpaid salaries, and leave it at that. The Federal Government may have to immediately initiate a rescue plan to pay the salary arrears, to stem the human sufferings, before asking the state governments to go and sin no more.

‘State governments that owe salaries must certainly demonstrate the will to pay. They could restructure payment schedules (the way bankers do), and then seek to re-negotiate more realistic minimum wage regime with labour. This way, accrued wage bills are settled, and a future without financial booby-traps charted’